


The Most Important Thing

by alestar



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-25
Updated: 2005-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:42:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alestar/pseuds/alestar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My thesis on those darlings of the early 90s; alternately, a really long sex scene that I edited for a couple of years and have just edited again (Jan 2010) in the process of posting it to AO3. No spoilers for anything published in the 21st century.  This story has been described as <i>calm</i>.  Dec 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Important Thing

  


  
_I love that Rogue fucking Remy up the ass is the most important thing._  
~ Lise

  


From rooftops, hallways, terraces, from five inches away, Remy has heard it again and again-- that he pursues Rogue so doggedly because he knows he can't ever have her. It makes sense. Rogue is a struggle that won't ever resolve itself; Remy's a rambler, a villain or a martyr. He won't ever be able to touch her, and she won't ever touch him.

*

Remy wore only a thin black t-shirt beneath his fleece jacket, and he was freezing. He leaned his elbows on the back of the bench and tapped the blades of his ice skates against the cement.

Couples moved across the ice hand in hand, with the tails of their long scarves tangling behind them, while a raspy-voiced love song played over Rockefeller Center. One pair of skaters spiraled outward from the center of the rink to the rim, spinning gradually around itself, and the lovers collapsed against each other at the wall, laughing.

"That's sweet," Rogue said. Remy turned his head to look up at her expression. Rows of winter lights cobwebbed the background behind her head, fuzzy and dim through Remy's sunglasses.

She was smiling.

She leaned down over the back of the bench and tucked a gloved hand over the back of Remy's neck. "Do you wanna get outta here?" she asked.

Remy glanced back at the two people at the rim of the ice rink, untangling their scarves and arms, breathless, red-faced, and nodded.

\--

_Betsy is a long yellow-brown whipcord and a brilliant blossom of pain in the side of your skull as you dodge her staff only to meet her elbow. It makes you dizzy; you catch yourself blindly on the mat and flip and land on your feet. She's already there and you block, block, fail to block. You feint a roll to your feet; she moves to meet you and you catch her behind the knee, cuff her hard across the collar with your staff. She falls and you're over her immediately, crushing her fingers around her staff until she lets go. You pin her with all your weight, but within seconds Betsy's left wrist presses up against your jaw, her right wrist against the base of your skull. A quick shift of her shoulders will break your neck._

_She smiles. You smile._

_You slowly settle down on top of her, and she waits until your head rests fully against the crook of her neck and your mouth brushes her collarbone before pushing you away. She rises and picks up both of the staffs._

_"F'get sparrin', chere," you say, sitting up on the mat. "You should give Gambit a chance to show you where he really shine."_

_"What about Rogue?" Betsy murmurs._

_Her long hair is tied messily behind her, strands plastered with sweat to her cheeks and forehead, purple-black like improbable strips of bruise. She drops your staff next to you then moves into her fight stance. She's beautiful._

_You laugh, wiping your dry mouth on the back of your hand. "Who?"_

\--

Rogue made as little sound as Remy on the hardwood floor of the foyer. She pulled off her hat and scarf, shaking her hair loose, up the staircase, down the hallway. They toed off their boots inside Remy's bedroom, and Rogue slid her jeans down her thighs, over the black and green bodysuit, making a pile on the floor with her thermal, socks, and sweater.

Remy took off his sunglasses and pulled his fleece off over his head. Remy took two bottles of water from the mini-refrigerator and threw one to Rogue.

Rogue caught it. "How are ya, sugar?" she asked.

"Frozen solid." Remy shook his head and grinned, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. "I'll never learn how to dress f'weather in New York."

Rogue laughed. "You swamp rat-- why don't we warm you up some."

Remy set his water next to Rogue's and sat down on the bed. He held out his gloved hands for Rogue's matte black waist, and Rogue moved forward and touched his shoulders. "You want to?"

Remy pressed a kiss sideways into Rogue's gloved wrist. "Oui."

Rogue smiled and pushed on his shoulder. "Sit back." She went to the dresser and Remy leaned back against the headboard, while Rogue opened and closed drawers, humming to herself.

"Whatcha singin', chere?"

"Johnny Cash, I think." Rogue looked over her shoulder, then threw Remy a t-shirt. "Put this one on, sugar, it's got a thicker weave."

Remy caught it. "I'm not worried about it."

Rogue went back to sifting through the drawers. "Humor me. I don't wanna hafta worry about it neither."

Remy pulled off his thin t-shirt and put on the other-- this one white and a size too big, with longer sleeves, which he rolled up to the shoulders. He tugged the hem up to his shoulder blades.

"Remy," said Rogue, dropping a bundle on the bed.

Remy grinned. "Let me be."

Rogue shook her head. She dumped a bundle onto the bed and sat down next to Remy's feet and began to pull at the laces of his shoes. Rogue pulled off his shoes and then his socks, balled a sock and ran it over the top, toes, sole of Remy's foot. Remy let his head rest on the wall behind his bed.

"I'll let you be _somethin'_," Rogue groused.

She moved her hand up to Remy's thigh, then to the top of his jeans and tugged at the button. He lifted his hips while Rogue pulled away denim, cotton, elastic, lifted one foot then the other. He sighed as Rogue pulled the gloves off of him.

Remy pressed his naked hands to Rogue's covered stomach, up to her covered breasts. Then he leaned forward, pressing his mouth there.

"Lord," Rogue murmured. She held Remy's head gingerly against her chest. "Your hair is still cold."

Remy opened his mouth, teeth pushing dully, carefully into the fabric. Rogue closed her eyes, kneeling between Remy's legs. Rogue said quietly, "Lord."

\--

_You're draped across a dirty but comfortable sofa, and there's a girl draped across you. You're in a back room of some bar in Ft. Lauderdale._

_Johnny Cash is on the radio somewhere, and the girl's talking but her words are indistinct, or maybe you're only half-listening. The memory is blurred with alcohol, and earlier there was some heroin._

_The girl pulls on your open shirt to get your attention. When you finally open your eyes, she says, "Take me with you." You don't remember what she means. Her stringy red hair against your jaw smells like hairspray. You nod._

_"Luc," she whispers, because that's what you told her your name was._

_"Of course, chere," you say. You touch her head and then tug her head toward your lap. "Je t'aime, belle, of course."_

_Tomorrow morning you have to go on to Tampa to meet with a smuggler, and after that to Texas for a few weeks, but where this girl thinks you're going, you don't know. She smiles up at you, fumbling with your belt; she squeezes you through the fabric of your slacks. You brush her stiff hair off of her forehead. Maybe Brazil or Prague, maybe Nashville. Maybe you told her something._

\--

Remy nudged upward, to Rogue's collar and her throat, but when his forehead bobbed dangerously close to her chin, she tilted her face away from him. She touched his forehead and he pulled back, mouth smiling, red from rubbing against cloth. He leaned past her and tugged forward the folded white towel bundle, tugged on a corner until its contents spilled out: a black strap harness, a dildo, a half-empty squeeze tube of lubricant.

Rogue ducked her head and kissed Remy's cloth-covered shoulder.

The dildo was heavy and smooth, dark green with gold sparkle flecks; it had belonged to Rogue since she was seventeen. Remy slid it into the harness, and Rogue spread her thighs. The top of Remy's hand rubbed against her as he secured the buckle between her legs; she hummed and her head dropped forward.

With his other hand, Remy thumbed open the lube. Rogue, straddling his hand, leaned back and let Remy squeeze a thick line down the dildo, which he spread, his hand moving up and down its length. Remy sighed.

Rogue canted her hips once more against his other hand, then touched his face.

"Lay down, sugar." Remy sank back against the pillows.

His bed was wide and long-- modern, a concoction, uneven slats of pale wood, which Rogue had willfully covered with flannel sheets, a green coverlet and a quilt folded at the foot. The pillows were Remy's, satin and pale yellow.

Rogue opened the tube of lubricant and squeezed some into her hand, darkening her glove along the palm and fingers to deep shiny forest green. She touched Remy's thighs and his legs spread wider. She tucked her hand carefully around his cock and jacked him, frowning in concentration. Remy's hips followed her fist but his face remained steady and smooth, serene; after a few strokes, his mouth fell open.

"Chere," he said quietly.

Rogue squeezed gingerly and said, "baby." She leaned forward on her knees and pressed her lips together. There was nothing safe to put her mouth on. Remy's hands moved up and down her thigh and over the bedspread, and after a few minutes of thrusting into Rogue's hand, he nudged his knee up.

Rogue pulled away.

She handed Remy the lubricant, and he sat up a little, smearing lube between his thumb and fingers and bringing his knee closer to his chest. Rogue couldn't make him ready; she was always afraid to press against resistance, she had too little sense of what was making way for her versus what she was breaking; but Remy could do it, and it was amazing to watch his fingers slowly sink into himself. The first time Rogue had seen it, she'd make a noise out loud and hadn't been able to stop touching his bent wrist, his curling back.

Rogue put her hands on Remy's ankles, running her thumbs gently over the tendons.

"Kiss me," said Remy.

Rogue frowned. "Shh. no."

\--

_There's a cot in the grimy apartment, a manila folder of forged documents, and, beneath the open window, a small wooden table and chair. You leave the light off. You're not supposed to be in New Orleans, and although everyone already knows you're here-- your first week back you found a letter with the Thieves Guild crest placed warningly on the table and a notice from the Assassins stabbed into your apartment door-- you lie as low as possible. You have a job as an assistant art curator at the Arthur Roger and you pay someone else to do your shopping._

_It's 3 am._

_Someone's shouting nearby-- could be anger or panic-- so you reach up and pull the window shut. The smeared dirt on the pane blots out most of the streetlight so that the only light in the apartment is the red-golden ember at the end of your cigarette, and you make sure to keep that lit._

\--

Rogue stood and flipped off the overhead light; with his dry hand Remy switched on the bedside lamp. They always left a light on when they were in bed together, because night vision was one thing of Remy's that Rogue didn't share, and it was dangerous otherwise-- a hand reaching out blindly could find a face, and Rogue leaning forward suddenly, not thinking, colliding in the dark with foreheads and throats, could kill.

Rogue came back to the bed and sat in front of Remy, who drew his hand up to his cock and watched Rogue arrange herself on the bedspread, legs and hands and dildo, cloth-covered breasts and stomach. His eyes were mostly black now, the red catching only a little in the half light as his neck arched slowly backwards, then forwards.

"Chere," he said. He pulled his hands away from himself altogether, reaching up into his hair, hips tilting up.

Rogue said quietly, "Turn over."

Remy rolled and repositioned himself on the pillows-- Rogue touching his hips, the backs of his thighs-- until his calves settled on either side of Rogue's knees.

Rogue put her gloved hand against the small of Remy's back and spread her fingers, pushing down carefully. "tilt up," she said, and Remy arched. Rogue shifted forward, moving her weight to the hand resting near Remy's forearm; then she guided the slippery head of the dildo to press against his body.

Remy spread his knees until his toes nudged the lip of the bed. Rogue stretched out over top of him-- pressing her knuckles into the bedspread, hands already fisted so that she wouldn't rip the covers, wouldn't shove the tips of her fingers deep into the flesh of the mattress without thinking.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," she murmured, pressing her face into the t-shirt bunched at Remy's nape. She didn't say it to soothe him.

Remy nodded. Rogue's legs, between Remy's legs, pushed forward; she matched her breathing to Remy's long slow exhale.

\--

_Black-brown eyes that have seen hardly anything watch you warily from across the table, narrowed in a darkened corner of a dark bar. He doesn't bite his lip, his eyes aren't wide with fear, but he fidgets nervously watching you shuffle cards._

_"Like I said," you say, "d'initial $35,000 can be in y'account by Tuesday an' de rest you don't get 'til January."_

_"But I need it now," he says, eyebrows gathering._

_You sigh. You divide the deck of cards into piles on the tabletop, then stack them. "Look-- what was it? Spear? Lance?"_

_"_Harpoon._" The boy's eyes narrow, his chin lifts. "My name is Harpoon."_

_He's nineteen years old, wearing a grey flannel shirt and jeans and a patched denim jacket. His old Dodge is parked outside in the gravel lot, between a rusted Ford pick-up and your red Lexus SUV. (This is a fundamental memory for Remy. Every detail is etched in solid stone.)_

_"Look, _harpon_\--" You shake your head impatiently, hair long, August 1994. "do y'want the job or not?"_

\--

There was no sensation of warmth or wetness through the dildo; there was only abstract slickness: the resistance, then the slacking of resistance. Rogue pushed her hips forward by centimeters, waiting, breathing calmly.

She knew from experience that Remy could take the whole thing.

When Remy's bare thighs pressed back against Rogue's covered ones, she leaned her face into the bunched fabric at Remy's neck. "Y'all right, sugar?" she asked quietly.

"Oui," he answered. He touched her arm, the arm braced over him, wrapping his naked hand around her wrist. "Oui."

Rogue slid out of him, slowly, then back in. After a few strokes her hips accustomed themselves to the length of the push, she knew how far to tilt her hips, and she sped up. Her stomach tapped against Remy's ass, her breasts swept up and down his back. Remy let go of Rogue's wrist and gripped tightly at the edge of the pillow, Rogue's fists on either side of his hands, their knuckles knocking arhythmically into the headboard.

\--

_White fluorescent lines cobweb over the grid, and Cyclops explains that a network of tunnels under the mansion extends north and east about twenty miles but that only three square miles are charted and surveilled. You've been living in Salem Center for four months._

_"A nation of people called the Morlocks once inhabited the tunnels," says Ororo, gazing expressionlessly at the map. "But several years ago their numbers were decimated and their survivors scattered."_

_"Most of the tunnels are now flooded and at least partially collapsed, but it's been a security risk a few times, so we keep an eye on it." Cyclops presses another button and red lights blink on, marking known entrances and exits to the tunnels. "There are monthly evacuation sims in the Danger Room."_

_You touch a gloved finger to the grid. "Hunh."_

\--

Every time Rogue thrust forward, the base of the dildo and the limb of the harness pushed against her; she couldn't safely jut her hips hard enough to grind against it, but it was a steady pulse, a little shock in her thighs, in her chest and jaw.

She uncurled one hand and brought it to her mouth, slipped two fingers past her teeth. She had to straighten her back to keep her balance and Remy's breath caught at the new angle. The line of his spine arched, lit from the side by the bedside lamp, damp, his shirt rucked up on his shoulders, as though they had been in such a terrible hurry-- as though they had barely made it--

A powerful jolt of Rogue's hips shoved Remy forward into his pillow. "Sorry," Rogue huffed out, and her body stilled, but Remy reached blindly behind himself with one hand. Rogue caught his arm, said, "Remy, careful," voice strained, and led Remy's hand to her waist; he grabbed onto it, skin slipping on the slick fabric, driving his hips backwards.

\--

_Shiny brown splotches of spilled espresso swim in your vision, dotted with egg-white pellets of dried foam. The overturned mug is an inch from your face and the smell of coffee is overpowering. It's your second week in Florence. There are vague images of blueprints, plans, hushed conversations in back rooms; but Gianni Vescovo's hands are pinchingly tight on your hip and shoulder from behind, and that drowns out most everything else. The memory is of forearms rubbing staccato against the woodgrain of the table, the smell of coffee, murmured Italian, a throbbing sense of_ relief_._

\--

Rogue bit on her hand and stooped forward, pressing her face into Remy's t-shirt. He smelled like shampoo and sweat, and red-brown strands of his hair stuck to her forehead. Flushed, scalding beneath the fabric.

Remy let go of Rogue's waist and reached down to grab his cock.

Rogue's blood was hot enough for her to keep her hands to herself, although she leaned down to nuzzle his t-shirt and she could feel his shoulder move against the side of her face: every stroke up and down, his shoulder blade rocked under her.

"Jj-- Julie," she said.

"Shhh," said Remy, though it ended on a sharp exhalation of breath: a groan made of air rather than sound. Remy wasn't always quiet in bed, but with Rogue and a few others, he was. Still and slow, spread open. His shoulder jumped, Rogue buried inside him, and he came.

\--

_Adrenalin rockets through your system, making all of Henri's hushed sounds seem loud, all the colors in the dark alley bright. Henri glares at you._

_"You should take dese things more seriously," he whispers._

_"Y'take 'em seriously enough f'everybody," you say, grinning hugely, hands flexing with excitement. You don't even whisper it. The rest of your father's people, _your _people, line up in the alleyway with duffle bags thrown over their shoulders. The duffel bag at your own feet swells with thousands of dollars worth of prescription drugs._

_Henri takes a step closer to you and hisses, "Y'gonna get someone killed one a'dese days, Remy."_

_You shake your head at your brother, your chunky solemn-faced brother, who didn't do nearly as well on his first warehouse job seven years ago; you laugh out loud and throw a joyful arm around Mira, who's been with the Guild only a few months and is coming to bed with you tonight. You love your brother, but he isn't you. You aren't worried._

_Your seventeen year old heart hammers. You're a prince and a shining sun._

\--

Remy bucked against his fist three times more, then released a short, sharp breath. He crossed his forearms on the pillow and leaned his forehead against them.

Rogue drew back, touching his hips. She ran a hand over his ass where she was pulling out of him-- careful but slipping in shallowly where the dildo had pulled him open. She kissed him through the t-shirt, which had fallen down to his ribs.

"How ya feel?" she asked, touching the back of his head.

Remy nodded and rolled over, face pacific.

He raised his mouth up and Rogue lowered her throat to meet it; he pressed a soft kiss near the edge of the bodysuit. Then he lay back and touched Rogue's thigh, waiting until she moved to straddle his legs to slip a hand beneath the middle strap of the harness.

Rogue spread her knees and hunched over Remy while he rubbed against her with the pads of his fingers. She held her hips still against Remy's hand, her own hands fisting again preemptively on either side of Remy. She pressed her face carefully against the t-shirt gathered on Remy's chest and kissed the bundled mass of fabric.

Remy squeezed her thigh with his other hand.

Rogue hung suspended over his fleshly frame as sense memories flickered through her. Remy's hand ground against her, and she curved forward before stilling her body, leaning it away from Remy, though he lifted up to follow her.

"Chere," Remy said, wrapping an arm hard around her waist.

Rogue nodded, eyes screwed shut. She gasped, "chere"-- and all the inhuman strength in her shoulders, hands, and belly shuddered, contained.

After a moment, Rogue released a slow breath and she lowered herself to the bedspread, settling herself, limbs trembling, onto her crossed legs.

She pushed her damp auburn hair out of her face. She laid a hand on Remy's calf and ran it up and down from knee to ankle.

Remy sat up with a faint laugh, holding his arm. "My shoulder," he said, with a grimace.

Rogue found the white towel at the foot of the bed and handed it to Remy, who wiped at the jizz on his stomach and thighs. She grinned and shook her head. "Well, stupid."

*

From rooftops, hallways, terraces, from five inches away, Remy has heard it again and again-- that he pursues Rogue so doggedly because he knows he can't ever have her. It used to make better sense than it does now: Rogue's head and Remy's heart were quieter places, then. Rogue had been in love with, probably, silky promises, bizarre devotion, a thousand half-truths, and Remy had been in love with, probably, no one.

But it isn't true anymore.

Remy knows it looks like narcissism-- loving Rogue, surrendering everything to her, finally, when part of her personality is Remy reflected-- but for all his carrying on, Remy was ripped violently from _that_ particular vice a long time ago. It may also look like masochism, but it isn't Rogue's strength and sporadic capacity for violence that open them up, make them alternately convex and concave. It's the resignation that Rogue knows all his awfulness, finally.

It's the peace that comes with resignation. It's the love that comes from sitting in a room with someone and being at peace.


End file.
